COVID Surge: 16 Million To Be Locked Down In China’s Biggest City From Tomorrow

Shanghai: China’s biggest city and global financial hub Shanghai faces its biggest COVID-19 test as 16 million people are set to be locked down for four days from April 1.

From Friday morning, residents in the western part of the city won’t even be able to leave their homes to take their pets for a walk.

This is the second phase of lockdown in Shanghai, which has seen a significant surge in fresh coronavirus infections this month along with some other provinces.

The shutdown will begin tomorrow as restrictions in the eastern half of Shanghai are likely to be lifted after a review of mass COVID testing results.

According to Shanghai’s deputy secretary-general Ma Chunlei, the fresh lockdown will be more complicated because of the bigger population and larger geographical area involved.

The highly transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus has been driving the COVID spike in China.

Shanghai reported nearly 6,000 COVID-positive cases on Wednesday. In the early days of March, the number was in single digits.

China’s tech hub Shenzhen was shut down earlier, while Jilin was the worst-hit province.

The administration in Shanghai had ruled out a city-wide lockdown earlier, fearing that it could impact the domestic as well as global economy. Some restrictions were introduced, like schools being closed down and citizens needing negative COVID test reports to move around in public.

But the situation has worsened now.